It's that time of year again

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Originally Posted by sharpshooter

Snakes and ticks won't be a problem in November in the U.P.. Neither will it being too hot. Staying warm and not getting frost bite will be more of a concern. At least layering up is a option vs. a t-shirt and shorts while still being hot and sweaty down south.

Today it was nice and cool in the morning and stayed around 70 all day.Son just got in from the blind and saw nothing.Other son bought a grinder and tubed up 10 pounds of ground deer meat.Its time for Chili and Chili dogs!

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My youngest son got a young doe the other day.Landowner got a back leg,oldest son got everything but the backstraps and tenderloin since he has a grinder and dehydrator to process the meat for burger and jerky.
Son did the backstraps chickenfried and wrapped some in bacon and broiled them and drizzled a little honey on the wraps.Wife wont eat deer meat but tried because the kid cooked it.She is a believer now!
Made two pounds of ground venison into chili last night since the weather got nice and cool.
Land owner is complaining about coyotes so my kid is setting up on another property so I can go in at night and warm em up.

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Anybody shooting varmints with Thermal at night?Going to sell a few toys to get a thermal unit and another can for 30 cal.Looking at AGM Rattler.Trying to stay under 3k on the thermal.Everything is pretty much under 200 yds here.

[mepps1]

Originally Posted by OBLIGATED

Anybody shooting varmints with Thermal at night?Going to sell a few toys to get a thermal unit and another can for 30 cal.Looking at AGM Rattler.Trying to stay under 3k on the thermal.Everything is pretty much under 200 yds here.

Over your desired price point. But I have the Rico 25 and it's amazing. Best I know of for the money, but the money is about 5k. Does handheld, weapon sight, clip-on, and helmet mounted. It's good. Your wallet will get over it.

[mepps1]

https://irayusa.com/RH25

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JRH Enterprises has them.They sell the night fighter package I bought.
I loved the videos of them when I saw I could mount to my helmet but the price right now is out of my budget and probably overkill for the terrain here.
Im going to sell a couple toys I never use to get the Thermal,Tripod and another can.
Still have a little renovation for the inside of the house and Im trying to put away funds for my sailboat and upgrades so money is an issue right now.

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Originally Posted by mepps1

Over your desired price point. But I have the Rico 25 and it's amazing. Best I know of for the money, but the money is about 5k. Does handheld, weapon sight, clip-on, and helmet mounted. It's good. Your wallet will get over it.

Any complaints or issues with the unit?How well does it perform in cold or wet weather?

[mepps1]

Originally Posted by OBLIGATED

Any complaints or issues with the unit?How well does it perform in cold or wet weather?

Cold is no problem. In fact it's beneficial. Haven't tried wet, but it's well built and sealed. Shouldn't be an issue.

All the thermals eat batteries, so it takes a few 18650's to stay out all night.

Only gripe I have is that the menu is something of a PITA. There are about a thousand functions on three keys, so it's a little unavoidable. Mine freezes up for a fraction of second fairly regularly. The digital zoom is not especially useful, since it just blows up the pixels you have. Likewise, you won't want to zoom higher than about 5x, 6x tops looking through a variable power scope. 4x-5x is the clearest picture you will get.

It takes a minute or so to go from handheld to clip-on and vise versa, because you'll have to refocus the diopter on the thermal unit.

Clipped on in front of good glass, I can easily pick out vehicles at over 2,000 yards. I can pick out sparrows hiding in thick juniper trees with no magnification.

For hunting, resolution is extremely important for PID. You can't possibly have too much. Best I can tell, this unit has about the best picture you are going to get short of dropping about 15k.

I haven't been able to put it up against other units side by side. Maybe something comparable is out there. I think you can get pretty good dedicated scopes for about the same money, maybe a bit less. And you can get handheld thermal with the same resolution for less. Best info I could find is that this is the best unit all around unless you drop double or triple the money.

Thermal exists to make PVS14's look cheap.

Oh, and the "optional" Pictail is necessary for clip-on use. The mount sent with the unit is too high to line up on most scopes. So there's another couple hundred bucks.

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Thank you Mepps.Probably end up with a Rattler or Hogster depending on the deals I find.Both are decent entry level scopes that can be backup if I end up too far down the thermal rabbit hole and end up with the 25.Both sons like the idea of thermal but Im not seeing any offers to chip in some funds.

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Buddies son went out and got a nice buck in south Florida.
My youngest came over to get his bow targets to practice and help me weedeat the property.Three does were across the road watching us.Evenings are in the 60s.Gotta heal up and get ready to grind some deer burger.

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Youngest son put 3 does down as soon as archery started.He was in the blind the day after getting married with the wife.She got a Remington 308 bolt gun for gun season.
Eight point has been on the cam and they have been bickering who gets to shoot it.Now an eleven point has showed up also.So far only the eight pointsix point and a bunch of fork horns have been in the cam during daylight.Does are everywhere.

[sharpshooter]

Originally Posted by OBLIGATED

Youngest son put 3 does down as soon as archery started.He was in the blind the day after getting married with the wife.She got a Remington 308 bolt gun for gun season.
Eight point has been on the cam and they have been bickering who gets to shoot it.Now an eleven point has showed up also.So far only the eight pointsix point and a bunch of fork horns have been in the cam during daylight.Does are everywhere.

They could always do the old fashion coin toss for the 8pt. or the new 11 pt. buck. With basically only hog fish and mangoes open. Can't blame people for hanging up the spear gun and taking down the bow or rifle. Am hearing rumors red grouper next year might be only Jan. to April. Gag season maybe 6 weeks. Just had a local spearing buddy sell his house and boat. He bought some rural property in northern Ga.. Going to build a home. He and his wife got tired of the high home owners and auto insurance rates. Too many people and crazy drivers here.

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She will probably get an eight pointer.My other son has one on his property that showed up on the cam.Weather is going to be cool this week and the bucks are sparring.I gave my youngest son a deep freeze but its about half full so I guess we will be giving some meat to a buddy that makes smoked lebanon bolongna with venison.
We left south Florida about 20 years ago.I miss the salt water but not the congestion,crime,high costs,feral humans and hurricane season.Plan was to finish renovating the house,sell my boats and start looking for a 29-34ft 2000ish year sailboat to break up the winter.August I got in a pretty bad wreck and wiped out my truck and got concussion,whiplash and a disk bulging the morning I sold one of the boats.May end up getting some surgery to clean things up.I had been off a cane for 6 years after lots of physical therapy and steroid shots and now Im starting to leave the cane in the Jeep and hoping to ride my bike.Had to use some of my sailboat fund to get a Jeep so the sailboat is on hold for a while.Life has lots of twists and turns!
Pics are Bell Mountain overlooking Lake Chatuge.Twenty years here and never been there!We may start Overlanding with the Jeep.There are lots of forest roads here with camp sites and rivers to fish.Both sons have 4x4s so we can do family trips locally.It will keep me from thinking about the sailboat and keep me moving.

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I guess Georgia has some big Bucks in the mountains.Was driving home from my kids house last night and a 200# 10 point minimum Buck strolled across 515 with his tongue out and a tree branch stuck in hiis antlers.
Meanwhile Im slamming on the brakes and cussing as he just slowly walks across the highway.I have not seen a buck this big here in 15 years.

[riplipper]

For some reason, probably minerals, mountain bucks seem to always grow bigger and bigger racks than the piedmont areas. Usually.....